MARRAKECH (Morocco), Dec 5:
Indian cinema came to Morocco in the 1940s, even before television arrived in the North African nation.
Nearly a century later, the largest film-producing country’s long-lasting love story with audiences in Morocco continues, surviving the onslaught of Hollywood, small screen, and streaming.
Blockbuster Indian films from the then Bombay (now Mumbai) were first screened in major Moroccan cities like Casablanca, Marrakech, and Tangier in the late 1940s. The Moroccan audiences quickly embraced the songs and dances of the Hindi movies, making Hindi cinema a part of the country’s popular culture.
According to Moroccan film industry veterans, the early Hindi films were part of the movie package offered by film distributors in Egypt — the African and Middle East region’s oldest film industry — for theatrical release in Morocco.
More than eight decades later, Morocco’s major international film festival in Marrakech is a shining symbol of the historical bond between Morocco’s film-loving audiences and Bollywood.
At the 22nd edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival, which began on November 28, one of its prominent gala presentations was an Indian movie. ‘Homebound’, the Hindi language feature film directed by Mumbai-based filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan, received a standing ovation following its screening on Thursday evening.
Indian movie stars like Shashi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Hrithik Roshan are household names in Morocco, which still receive theatrical release of Hindi films.
“Indian movie stars are more popular than Hollywood stars in Morocco,” says Hisham Beereb, a taxi driver in Marrakech. “It was heartbreaking to hear about the passing of Dharmendra a week ago,” he says.
Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, and Shah Rukh Khan have all presented their films at the Marrakech festival before, drawing huge crowds to get a glimpse of their favourite stars.
“Whenever an Indian actor attends the festival here, the atmosphere is like a wedding,” says Michele Desmottes, a Casablanca-based fashion and entertainment editor. Priyanka Chopra found that out to her pleasant surprise when the actor was given a rare tribute at the city’s famous Jama? El Fna square, a UNESCO World Heritage Site lined by souks, in 2019.
‘Homebound’, produced by prominent Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions among others, tells the story of two young childhood friends from the Hindi heartland dreaming of becoming police officers to shake off stigma around caste, religion, and poverty.
Last year, Mumbai-born filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine As Light’, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in the same year, was a highlight of the Marrakech Film Festival.
Kapadia, an alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, also featured in a panel discussion with celebrated Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuar?n and Argentine director Santiago Mitre at the festival last year.
Johar, who directed such box office hits as ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ (1998) and ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ (2001), is a participant of the festival’s popular In Conversation With programme, which this year has movie icons like American actor Jodie Foster and South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, who directed ‘Parasite’, the winner of the Oscar award for Best Picture in 2020.
‘Homebound’, Ghaywan’s sophomore feature, stars Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa, and Janhvi Kapoor. Khatter and Jethwa walked the red carpet with Johar and Ghaywan at the gala screening of the film, which is India’s official entry to the 2026 Oscar Awards.
‘Masaan’, Ghaywan’s debut feature set in the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, winning two prominent prizes at the event. (UNI)
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